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This is decidedly one of the most stimulating and suggestive books that have been published on the subject of homosexuality. Dr. Stekel's views are more than interesting,-they are arresting,-and no one can undertake a review of this great subject and leave them out of serious consideration.
Very briefly, Stekel's views of homosexuality runs about as follows: He starts off with the individual as bisexual; he believes all individuals are originally bisexual, but that this bisexuality in the face of our modern culture is impossible to maintain. He therefore either represses the homosexual or the heterosexual component. In the latter case he becomes homosexual.
This is a very different view from that which is ordinarily held to the effect that the homosexual is homosexual through and through and was born that way and cannot be any different and has no possibility of getting over his difficulty. This throws homosexuality distinctly into the realm of the neuroses and the possibility of treatment and cure, although Stekel of course realizes the extreme profundity of the affection and the impossibility, in the large number of cases, of effecting any lasting results. This however, does not necessarily argue against the mechanism, nor theoretically against the possibility of its successful treatment. If Stekel is right, then homosexuality has possibilities for cure never before dreamed of, and it remains to elaborate the technique of therapy. The questions immediately arise in considering this mechanism as responsible for homosexuality: Why does the homosexual turn away from the opposite sex? What has led to the necessity for repressing the heterosexual component? Stekel presents a rich case material which goes to explain these mechanisms as well as to support his theory of a repressed heterosexuality. He shows, for example, that in the early history of these cases heterosexual experiences are invariable and then something happens which turns the individual away from the opposi